BSNL WAITS FOR GOVT AGENCY’S TAKE ON LAND ASSET MONETISATION
All land properties nominally valued above 100 cr are being monetised by the National Land Monetisation Corporation
Government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is waiting for the National Land Monetisation Corporation (NLMC) to pre- pare a strategy for the sale of its large portfolio of land and properties across the country that are marked to be put up for auction.
According to officials, all properties valued above Rs.100 crore are being monetised by the NLMC, a special purpose vehicle under the finance ministry’s Department of Public Enterprises. However, the NLMC has been slow to formulate such a strategy, they added.
“The NLMC will create a comprehensive strategy on monetising all land and properties (of BSNL), which are nominally valued at more than 100 crore. DoT will handle those assets valued at less than that figure. We are ready to help and are waiting for guidance from them,” a senior official with the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) said.
Officials said that the decision to transfer administrative control over monetisation of higher valued properties came after the auctions of six non- core assets of BSNL and Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) received a poor response last year. This was the first-ever sale of non- core property assets through auctions in November 2021.
These properties included BSNL’s land in Hyderabad (valued at about Rs. 400 crore). land in Rajpura (nearly 70 crore), a 5-acre plot in Bhavnagar (41 crore), and an 11-acre land in Kolkata (161 crore). MTNL’s 1.36-acre property in Mumbai, valued at 2270 crore, and 20 residential flats estimated at about 20 crore, were also put up for auction.
A year later, the company had put up a second set of properties for bids last month. On November 14, BSNL invited bids for the sale of 13 surplus properties situated at prime locations in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The reserve prices for the second set of properties to be sold via auction were set between 300 crore and 350 crore, the company had said.
The final date for submission of bids was December 5. Officials said these had received a better response than earlier and that more proper- ties would be made available for sales soon.
Slow progress
Back in 2020, the loss-making BSNL had identified 14 properties worth 220,160 crore to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) as part of the telecom corporation’s ambitious asset monetisation plans. These land parcels are spread across India in locations including Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Ghaziabad.
But in March 2022, the government had announced DIPAM will monetise 17 properties of BSNL and MTNL valued collectively about 123,358 crore in the first phase. In the first phase, 11 assets of BSNL valued at 18,200 crore, and six assets of MTNL worth 5,158 crore had been approved for monetisation.
However, officials on Tues- day told Business Standard that almost none of the monetisation plans were expected to take off in FY23.
Other PSUs and government departments have been asked to prepare a list of assets that can be monetised through NLMC. The body was incorporated on June 3 as a wholly- owned government of India company with an initial authorised share capital of Rs. 5,000 crore and paid-up share capital of 150 crore.
NLMC will own, hold, man- age and monetise such land assets of the public sector undertakings that are slated to be closed down and the surplus non-core land assets of government-owned companies under strategic disinvestment.
It will also advise and assist government departments, statutory bodies/authorities, autonomous bodies, and corporations on under-utilised non-core assets.
